Global Warming

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Global climate change impacts in the United States are spelled out with renewed authority in a report released June 16 by the federal government.

The report's key information has been well reported here and in Earth Under Fire and other books, but bears repeating in its straightforward language and up-to-date numbers.

Human activities have led to large increases in heat-trapping gases over the past century. The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to this human-induced increase. Global average temperature and sea level have increased, and precipitation patterns have changed.

Human “fingerprints” also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, plant and animal health and location, and Arctic sea ice.

In the U.S., the amount of rain falling in the heaviest downpours has increased approximately 20 percent on average in the past century.

Many types of extreme weather events, such as heat waves and regional droughts, have become more frequent and intense during the past 40 to 50 years. The destructive energy of Atlantic hurricanes has increased... In the eastern Pacific, the strongest hurricanes have become stronger since the 1980s, even while the total number of storms has decreased.

Sea level has risen along most of the U.S. coast over the last 50 years, and will rise more in the future. Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly and this is very likely to continue. Global temperatures are projected to continue to rise over this century.

Whether by 2-3 degrees F or more than 11 degrees depends on a number of factors, including the amount of heat-trapping gas emissions humans continue to allow and how sensitive the climate is to those emissions. Lower emissions of heat-trapping gases will delay the appearance of climate change impacts and lessen their magnitude.

Unless the rate of emissions is substantially reduced, impacts are expected to become increasingly severe for more people and places.

Monday, May 26, 2008

"Global Warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation."-wikipedia.

It's not just global warming sprout out of nowhere, it has age from peoples way of life since the World War II. It's biggest effect is climate change, here in the Philippines we have two seasons because we are in the tropical region of the globe. One which is dry season and other is rainy or wet season.

At present we could observe and feel the effect of Global Warming. Dry season usually starts October until June, and the wet season during the rest of the year. Now, it's unpredictable sometimes we have a long dry season or sometimes we have a long wet season. This is not the time to enjoy because we will have a long summer to go the beaches, we are in a critical point. Diseases are spreading rapidly for example, mosquitoes that transmit diseases such as malaria and dengue fever to extend their ranges and increase both their biting rate and their ability to infect humans. Humans with heart diseases, asthma and other illnesses will be affected by it, worst effect is lost of life, because they could not easily cope with the sudden change in the climate.

Yet another effect is Ice Age era. Green house gases trapped the sun beam reflection of excess sunlight to the earth, that's why the polar ice caps melts mostly in the north pole.

In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.by Thom Hartmann

Conveyor belt acts as conveyor of warm shallow current and cold and salty deep current circulating the earth's ocean. The more polar ice caps that would melt it would weaken or worst stop permanently the circulation of the belt, because warm shallow current cannot undergo it's normal process because cold and salty deep current is settled in the bottom ocean. Atlantic Ocean is where ice age would start. Now people near that area is experiencing it's effect.

The effects of the Global Warming is uncountable it greatly affects not only us humans but all living things that inhabits the earth. Lets us all protecting not only ourselves but also for others. Be educated about it and share your knowledge to everyone and important "RRR" reduce, resuse and recycle.